The 2022 Guinness Six Nations proved a cracker! Rugby Raconteur hit usual heights with 13/15 match results correctly predicted and 92% accuracy on the match points spread!
Let’s look back on the tournament with some final thoughts:
TWO TRIBES
France and Ireland have a clear distance over the chasing pack in Europe. France’s first title since 2010, secured by clinching the Grand Slam, was met with a wave of emotion at the Stade de France, but the joy should also reverberate across the game. For so long a faded power, Saturday’s jittery victory over England completed a transformation that restores one of the sport’s most admired rugby nations to the pinnacle. Directed by their outstanding half-backs Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack, they will enter next year’s home World Cup from a position of strength.
A superb Grand Slam capped 3 years of belief and development in their young team. The bold experiment to push forward the majority of the 2028 U20 Championship winning side to eb the new France has proved an unqualified success.
In Antoine Dupont, France has the world’s best player. With Shaun Edwards masterminding the defence and installing a new discipline – France have become the complete package. They were deserved Grand Slam winner playing champagne rugby when they could cut loose but digging deep and grinding it out when it matters. I for one loved it and I hope they go on to with the 2023 World Cup!
For Ireland, slow and steady progress. A great Autumn was followed up with a home destructions over Wales and Scotland, giving France their toughest game in Paris; and breaking down fortress Twickenham to beat England.
Joey Carbery came of age giving Ireland belief that there is a world after Johnny Sexton. Add to that an aggressive pack of ball paying forwards and clever attack patterns and Ireland are in the best shape they could be 1 year out from that World Cup.
Andy Farrell and Mike Catt can take real pride for rebuilding their careers after being discarded by England. There is a real irony that Ireland’s success is at England’s expense with the IRFU investing heavily in its development structure whilst Wales invested in a hotel. Bravo Ireland and I look forward to further progress next season.
FOR HEAVENS SAKE GO. GO NOW!
Not one but two coaches need immediate dismissal.
Eddie Jones has achieved little over the past two seasons and the RFU’s embarrassing statement “to fully support” him and insisted the coach "is building a new England team against a clear strategy", adding the governing body is "encouraged by solid progress" is a total joke.
Progress, according to the Oxford English dictionary, is “forward or onward movement towards a destination,” but in a sporting context it is really difficult to come up with a more appropriate means to measure this than results.
It is an extraordinary show of faith in light of England’s recent Six Nations results, with three defeats registered in three of the last five tournaments. Strip Italy out of the equation and only eight of the last 20 games have been won.
Jones’ claims of a wider context suggest that moving from being 2019 Six Nations winners with 18 points to finishing fifth then third in 2020 and 21, with ten points, is unimportant. Similarly, although England have gone from scoring 14 tries in 2020 to 12 last year then a paltry eight in 2022 – five of which came against Italy – in his eyes the team is apparently making progress.
While France prosper, England are flailing. Their performance in Paris typified what they have become – spirited and resilient, but lacking in any real potency. All of their resolve was on display in a heartening second half, but as an attacking force they ignite only sporadically. France and Ireland are light years ahead in this department and the lack of sustained cutting edge is a real area of concern for Eddie Jones, whose side have gone backwards since a successful autumn.
Eddie Jones’ arrival as England head coach in 2016 coincided with the peak years of a golden generation on the rise at Saracens.
For better or worse, the financial engineering built a superpower of a club of which provided Jones’ side with the backbone of his England side. He had a ready-made champion forward pack to hit the ground running when he started his tenure.
Mako Vunipola, Jamie George, Maro Itoje, Billy Vunipola, George Kruis, Owen Farrell all entered their peak years in 2016, and Saracens were already at the top of the domestic scene.
They had claimed the Premiership title in May 2015, less than six months before England’s World Cup flame-out in September.
Jones joined the England’s set up and built his core side around Saracens. The net result was that outstanding win in 2019 World Cup Semi Final over New Zealand.
Since then the world’s best-funded rugby coach – who will have held the position longer than any of his predecessors should he survive to the end of next year’s World Cup – is not viewing results or try-scoring stats with any sense of alarm, what are those areas in which he sees progress?
Time for England to pick up the phone and call Warren Gatland. Jones’ days are numbered.
Ditto Wayne Pivac.
The Pivacaust continues with an appalling Six Nations for Wales. The sheer arrogance of making seven changes before facing Italy showed huge disrespect and resulted in the worst display I have seen from Wales in a long while.
The Worst Run Union have shown an appalling disregard for the future of the game in Wales. There’s no denying Welsh rugby is in serious rtouble. From pro game down to grassroots. Wales’ success has papered over the cracks for years and the decision to starve the Regions of money during the pandemic and invest in. ahoytel rather than its player development is a clear sign that they are ditrectionless.
In many ways Wayne Pivac is the perfect coach for the WRU because he shows the same fragrant disregard for the supporters and making statements that the Welsh public “If we go to the World Cup and get to the quarter-final, and onto the semi-final, everyone will be very happy” show he is totally out of touch.
He must be dismissed immediately and Wales must move to separate management of the professional and community games. The Welsh U20 team have been poor for at least 5 years that really comes down to a lack of investment and vision.
Will either event happen? I’m not holding my breath but the future of Welsh rugby right now looks bleak with a return to the dark days of 2003 to 2007 highly probable.
LUCKY 37
For Italy, the win in Cardiff ended a 36 game losing streak and gave the Italians their first away win in the Six Nations since 2015. They thoroughly deserved it.
The Azzurri were immense as they prevailed 22-21 in Cardiff with electric full-back Ange Capuozzo producing the moment of the tournament with the exhilarating run that set-up the match winning converted try. All of Europe will be willing them to build on a breakthrough moment.
Their place had been questioned at length with many observers calling from promotion and relegation in the tournament and insisting Georgia would be more competitive than the Azzurri.
Kieran Crowley has coached Benetton to play like that in last few years so no surprise he is doing the same with the National team.
In Toulouse-bound Ange Capuozzo, they have a world class talent developing. Add to that a team which has progressed from their successful U20 program and Italy’s win will kill off all South African claims to join the Six Nations.
Can they kick on from here? You’d like to hope so but when you analyse the data they probably won’t. Sorry to burst the success balloon but Italy were woeful in four of the five matches in this championship and despite being by far the better team in Cardiff, that was largely down to Wales implosion rather than Italy suddenly rising to any great heights.
Enjoy the moment, you deserved it but in 12 month’s time we will be looking at another 5 Italian defeats. Another false dawn.
FLATTERED TO DECEIVE
Possibly the most unexpected aspect of the Six Nations has been the total collapse of Scotland, whose pre-tournament confidence was enhanced by an opening-day victory overEngland, before they unravelled in spectacular fashion. Apart from a hollow win against Italy, they failed to make any further impact as they became engulfed by a disciplinary storm in the final week. For a group of senior players, including captain Stuart Hogg and fly-half Finn Russell, to go out drinking in defiance of team rules is a lamentable lapse in judgement that hints at an unhappy camp.
The drama and joy of that see-sawing contest with England was only six weeks ago, but it feels like six months. The positivity has long since been leeched away. Scotland were dogged and ruthless that afternoon without reaching the levels they’d proven themselves capable of in 2021. After all they’d achieved last year, they were being cautiously talked about as title contenders. That is a laughable notion now.
It is as if this team has discarded all of the things that propelled them to seismic wins in 2020 and 2021. Scotland built those solid, three-win championships on the foundation of brutal defence, breakdown snarl and stringent discipline. They played smart rugby to beat France and England twice, to win a pig of a game in Wales for the first time in forever. They weaved some lovely attacking phase play, but tempered it with new-found belligerence and pragmatism. Scour the carcass of the recently deceased campaign, and your eyes pop at the extent of the deterioration.
Upon Steve Tandy’s arrival two years ago, Scotland reinvented themselves as a team that loved defending. They looked meaner and more organised. They conceded the fewest tries and points that season, the joint-fewest tries and second-fewest points the next. That stubbornness has deserted them. Scotland shipped as many tries – 15 – this year as they did in the previous two combined.
They had four put on them in Ireland, three in Rome and lost six at home to France. Nobody had scored six at Murrayfield in a championship match since Wales in 2005. Scotland’s willingness to trundle straight into the teeth of Shaun Edwards’ blitz that day was astonishingly ill-conceived.
They conceded 61 penalties in all, trumping their previous two tallies of 55 and 45. An average of 12 per game, and an ugly 15 conceded at the Aviva.
What struck you most about the slew of infringements was how thunderously dull so many of them were. When Hogg blew that glorious, cringe-so-hard-at-it-you’ll-pull-six-facial-muscles opportunity in Dublin, Ireland still had to throw in to a line-out five metres from their own line. A minute later, they had won back-to-back penalties, gobbled up a swathe of easy territory and still had possession. They did not have to work hard for their metres.
The upshot? Another round of uncomfortable questions. Townsend has come back from adversity before, when calls for his head grew after the pathetic 2019 World Cup. He brought in shrewd assistants and ceded more control to them. He abandoned his blueprint to play the fastest rugby in the world. He mended fences with Russell. He reinvigorated and refreshed a group haunted by the horrors of Japan.
Still, problems dog him – mistakes, discipline, and a chronic failure to back up big results. Consistently winning has never been easy for Scotland to achieve, but on Townsend’s watch, following this team is like spending the day at Alton Towers. The Calcutta Cup feelgood was obliterated in seven days by the pallor of Scotland’s performance in Cardiff. That trend shows no sign of abating.
Part of the anguish is that more is expected of Scotland these days. This is comfortably the best pool of players the country has known in the professional era. The great worry is that they have struck a ceiling, that while they can produce whopping victories in isolation, they just don’t quite have it within themselves to grind out win after win, week after week.
So much for it being Scotland’s year – again.
TEAM OF THE TOURNAMENT
Back Three:
ANGE CAPUOZZO (Italy), JAMES LOWES (Ireland) GABIN VILLIERE (France)
Centres:
GAEL FICKOU & JONATHAN DANTY (FRANCE)
Half Backs:
MARCUS SMITH (ENGLAND) ANTOINE DUPONT (FRANCE)
Front Row:
ELLIS GENGE (England) JULIAN MARCHAND (France) TADHE FURLONG (IRELAND)
Second Row:
CAMERON WOKI (France) PAUL WILLEMSE (France)
Back Row:
RORY DARGE (Scotland) GREGORY ALDITT (France) CAELAN DORIS (Ireland)
Bench:
Hugo Keenan (Ireland)
Johnny Sexton (Ireland)
Harry Randall (England)
Will Rowlands (Wales)
Jamie George (England)
Cyril Baille (France)
Andrew Porter (Ireland)
Maro Itoje (England)
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